Thesis focuses mainly on the architectural concept of neolithic house in the context of social stratification and anthropo-social issues in the southern Balkan region. The relations between a common house and an atypical house with a different shape, dimension, or interior layout and inventery, is observed. The clear catalogued list of settlements is included.

This thesis studies the experiences of Albanian and Bosnian Muslim immigrants in Canada in the post-9/11 period. It draws upon a boundary-making framework and employs qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the destigmatization strategies of Balkan Muslims, as well the national and cultural repertoires that enable and facilitate their utilization. The study yields several important findings. The quantitative findings show that Albanian and Bosnian Muslim immigrants in general show lower levels of attachment to religion compared to other Muslim immigrants. Also, many members of these ethnic groups appear to have resorted to the strategy of distancing and/or disidentifying from Muslim identification and/or faith in favour of identifying as irreligious as a way of coping with rising Islamophobia in Canadian society. The qualitative findings show that the move towards distancing/disidentification is due to a dissonance between the cultural repertoires of the meaning(s) of “Muslim” in participants’ homeland versus that of the host society. Discursively, the process of distancing/disidentification occurs mostly by drawing religious and, relatedly, moral and value boundaries from other, mostly non-European and racialized Muslims. Importantly, despite having been exposed to instances of Islamophobia, participants overwhelmingly reported that their communities have not been significantly affected by anti-Muslim sentiments. I argue that the Albanian and Bosnian Muslims’ lack of religious signs, bolstered by their “whiteness” and society’s general unfamiliarity with Muslims and the Balkans, have greatly contributed to the perceived lack of religion-based discrimination. This study thus demonstrates that Islamophobia is to a significant extent an issue of racism, and that, relatedly, “race” continues to be a weighty marker of differentiation in Canadian society, where skin colour and appearance function as a religious sign.

This thesis explores how people in mountainous regions of Albania interrelate with large carnivores. For the research, I used a combination of questionnaire survey and ethnographic fieldwork to generate insights into how rural dwellers perceive and interact with bears, wolves and lynx. Research and conservation efforts relating to large carnivores in areas where they live near humans often have a strong focus on human-wildlife conflicts; with the presumption that conflicts are a central part of people’s relationships with predators. I argue that, although conflicts between people and predators do occur, human-predator relationships in highland Albania are complex and diverse, beyond a simple engagement with conflict-causing animals. Large carnivores have rich local cultural profiles; each species being differently perceived, and responded to, by local groups in terms of their beliefs about the behaviours and characteristics of the animals. I argue that large carnivores are constructed, and responded to, as social actors and, as such, they are integrated into the moral community of humans. Customary codes that regulate the social life of people in highland Albania seem to extend into relationships with carnivores. Damages from predators are largely interpreted and evaluated on principles of belonging and moral integrity with little considerations of their financial aspects. Lack of conservation efforts from Albanian institutions for prolonged periods of time, and the remoteness of mountain communities, has brought about a situation in which locals have been largely left uninfluenced in shaping their relationships with large carnivores. I contend that such a situation, albeit seemingly problematic from an outside perspective, is particularly beneficial in maintaining low conflicts with, or over, predators. Recent increases in conservation efforts in Albania may influence relationships between people and predators in the future. Conservation actors will be faced with the challenge of avoiding possible conflict escalation to the detriment of large carnivores and to rural livelihoods.

This thesis examines processes of peace-promotion in the Balkans since the end of the Cold War. It is conducted from the perspective of International Relations theory and as such identifies peace as a pattern of order defined by the analytical framework of security communities. In this respect, the thesis argues that the initiation of a security community in the Balkans is a result of the post- 1999 international socialisation of regional decision-making by the EU and NATO. It, therefore, advances the concept of an elite security community as the embryonic stage of securitycommunity- building. The focus on state-elites is an outcome of the procedural dynamics of socialisation, where it is the decision-making behaviour that signifies compliance with externallypromoted standards. The conjecture is that the promotion of peace in the Balkans is the result of the extension of the Euro-Atlantic security community. The inference is that both the EU and NATO tend to be more convincing agents of socialisation as a result of their association/partnership and accession programmes. Being a complex and context specific process, the conditioning of Balkan states into a security-community-pattern of relations is underwritten by the Euro-Atlantic exercise of socialising power. This notion of power, however, is not defined as the control of policy-outcomes, but instead emphasises the ability of external actors to cause change in decision-making behaviour. The thesis also argues that the process of international socialisation has different effects depending on the nature of statehood in the target entities - in integrated states the external agency is both more immediate to discern and implement, while in awkward states the process tends to be longer and more intricate. Yet, as the case of the Balkans attests, the extension of the Euro-Atlantic security community to the region depends on the viable (even if distant) prospect of membership in the EU and NATO. In this way the thesis contributes to understanding the early stages of initiating a security community, as well as the role played by international actors in its promotion.

The case of Kosovo conflict serves as tool to test the validity of Huntington's theory. Owing to the fact that Mr, Huntington himself described the Balkans and Kosovo as an example of a fault line war, my aim is to verify his assumptions that the roots of the Kosovo conflict are to be found in the religion. During this work the conflict is reconstructed using Mr. Huntington's hypothesis and claims as well as interpreted by three hypothesis. Firstly, Kosovo could represent a conflict at the fault line, which would mean that the theory of the clash of the civilizations is verified. Secondly, the intervention of NATO implies participation of the third civilization in the conflict. To put in differently, the democratic West (NATO) intervened against the orthodox civilization (Serbia) in order to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe the Albanian population of Kosovo (Islam) was to face. Verification of this theory would imply that if there was a conflict between the civilizations in Kosovo, it was between the West (and Kosovo as an integral part of it) and the orthodox civilization. The third hypothesis interprets the Kosovo conflict as a war of the Civilization to promote its own values. Despite the fact that this explanation of the Kosovo conflict could possibly be the most probable one, original assumption of Mr. Huntington stating that the problems of Kosovo are of religious character would be falsified.

This paper deals with FDI in the Western Balkan countries with an emphasis on the determinants that influence FDI inflow. First, the conditions for investing in the region are examined, and then specific variables are chosen to be analyzed in the second part of the thesis. In the empirical part of the paper, the statistical significance of institutional and macroeconomic variables on the FDI inflow is researched. The concluding chapter evaluates the relationship between the accession process and FDI volume, and potential areas for FDI placement are recommended. As overall follow up to the preceding deductions, the investment outlook is finally presented.

Palaeoenvironmental investigations from the Lake Plav catchment of the Prokletije Mountains in Montenegro and Albania, allowed primarily climatic change and anthropogenic influences during the Late Holocene and particularly the Little Ice Age (LIA) to be identified. Three sediment cores were analysed, two from Lake Plav (904 m a.s.l., cores LPCA and LPCB) and one from the upper catchment site of Lake C in Buni i Jezerces (1754 m a.s.l., core BJC1). These sediments were analysed for a variety of proxies including pollen, ostracoda, organic content, magnetic susceptibility and particle size. Chronologies for each sediment core were constructed using AMS radiocarbon, 210Pb and 137Cs dating techniques. The lower sites provided a record of past flood events, anthropogenic influences, lake development and infilling that have occurred since c. AD 500. Core BJC1 provided longer-term data since c. 2720 BC, providing complementary records of Pediastrum and thermophilous arboreal types, identified following a catchment vegetation survey. Glacial geomorphological mapping of the Maja e Koljaet glacier in Buni i Jezerces, Albania, enabled a catchment specific palaeotemperature record to be constructed from AD 1859 to the present. Glacial features were dated using lichenometry before degree-day modelling enabled temperature reconstruction. The palaeotemperature reconstruction for the Albanian Little Ice Age glacial maximum (LIAGM) suggests that temperatures were 0.9°C below the 1980-2008 annual temperature mean. This work also provided the first record of glacial extent during the LIA in Albania, indicating that the Albania LIAGM occurred c. AD 1859, around a decade after the European LIAGM and two decades before that of Montenegro. Anthropogenic indicators were used to reconstruct human activity in the catchment, which suggested that arable farming was pursued throughout the Medieval Warm Period (MWP; c. AD 800-1090) and continued during a period of transition to the LIA, between c. AD 1090 and AD 1300. The LIA (c. AD 1300 - 1860) was characterised by an abrupt Alnus decline, thought to be the result of anthropogenic clearance of the floodplain and reduction of both arable and thermophilous types. During the LIA sedimentation rates were up to 1.41 + 0.17 cm yr-1 at Lake Plav causing lake infilling and shallowing allowing wetland expansion c. AD 1570. The result of lake infilling is highlighted during the early 20th century, when the lake extent fell by around 42% as a result of climatic amelioration post-LIA causing lake levels to fall and wetland indicators to decline. The inferred past climatic changes from the Lake Plav catchment are compared to data from around the Mediterranean and Southern Europe. This allows identification of the climatic influences affecting the site during the Late Holocene. Catchment records have provided evidence of cooler and wetter conditions coeval to the occurrence of solar minima such as the Wolf, Spörer and Maunder minima. Overall, the records suggest that continental atmospheric circulation patterns such as the North Sea-Caspian Pattern (NCP) and East Atlantic-West Russia pattern (EA-WR), dominated the site until the late 1800s, when records become more synchronous with the NAO index and Mediterranean/Southern European data.

The genus Pelasgus (Cyprinidae) is endemic to the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula and includes seven species. In this work, a multilocus approach has been applied to study phylogenetic relationships between the species and their populations and to revise their distribution areas. 180 specimens from 47 localities from 30 river drainages were analyzed, comprehensively covering the distribution range of the genus. Moreover, samples from type localities of all species were included in the analyses. Mitochondrial (cytochrome b) and nuclear markers (the first intron of ribosomal protein S7, recombination activating gene RAG1 and rhodopsin) were used. Existence of seven well supported lineages was revealed based on cytochrome b, which is the most variable marker. These lineages correspond to P. laconicus, P. marathonicus, P. minutus, P. stymphalicus, P. thesproticus, P. prespensis and Pelasgus sp. The most variable nuclear marker was first intron of S7, which provides almost the same results as cytochrome b, revealing six well supported lineages, whereas RAG1 and rhodopsin appear to be less informative, revealing only four well supported clades. These markers did not separate several species (P. marathonicus, P. stymphalicus, P. thesproticus, and Pelasgus sp.) due to low variability of the markers...

This thesis studies the positions EU member states take towards the Western Balkan Enlargement. We examine what forms these positions. We examine what influence does the net contribution to the European budget have, net contributors are less likely to support further Enlargement. The levels of migration and the feeling that migration is a concerning issue do not have relevant influence on the popularity of the Enlargement. We found no relevant correlation between the feeling of European citizenship and the support for the EU membership for the Balkan countries. We can, however, see that the New Member States are much more likely to support the EU enlargement than are those who became EU members before 2004. We have chosen four cases for case studies. In the case study of France, we can observe the influence of the French president on the Enlargement process and the resulting reform of its method. In the German case, the position of the political elites is a strong support of the Enlargement, even if the public are not that enthusiastic and have a lot of influence, since the German parliament has to also approve beginning of any accession talks. In the case of Greece, we can see how Greece was able to use its position as an EU member and gain leverage in their dispute with Macedonia over the name of...

Master Thesis by Christian K. Vinther, Charles University, Prague (77110981) 21/05/2015 Between Liberal Policies and Conservative Values: The Role of the EU in Improving Sexual Minority Rights in Albania Abstract In 2009 the People's Advocate in Albania announced their suggestion that Albania should become the first Balkan country to legalize gay marriage, a suggestion backed by the country's Prime Minister Sali Berisha. The odd thing is that this suggestion was presented in the same country voted the "most homophobic in Europe" according to a recent study, and simultaneously the suggestion came at a time when Albania did not even have an anti-discrimination law, and, assumingly, at a time when LGBT activist groups seemed more or less nonexistent. Since 2009, Albania has progressed severely in relation to LGBT matters, and the small Balkan country has adopted noteworthy liberal sexual minority policies. Yet, as stated above, this appears as a rather paradoxical fact, since homophobia in Albania appears widespread, and since it could be questioned why a country would even need to legalize gay marriage, since the gay population are unlikely to benefit from this kind of legislation, due to the harassment and marginalization of this particular minority group. The mismatch between the conservative values in...